The Ministry of Social Cohesion collaborated with the Fusion Fitness gym to host its first obstacle course fitness challenge on Sunday.
Through their youth development programme the President’s Youth Award of Guyana, the Ministry sought to promote healthy living among young people. In the opening remarks, the young people were encouraged to take up physical activities as it is a means of eradicating communicable diseases.
The obstacle course was designed to test physical and mental strength and persons of all backgrounds were encouraged to compete.
It was a day of inclusion for all, which meant that persons with disabilities were also seen taking on some of the obstacles.
Sasha Samner and Dwayne Griffith did an exhibition run of a few obstacles to the cheers and support of the big crowd gathered for the day’s event.
Uttamkumar Isurdes and Vlysses Edwards competed between themselves, pulling ropes with weights among other things.
Throughout the day, male and female competitors went up against each other in a series of obstacles on the soggy grass of the Guyana National Service Sports Complex Ground.
The morning events saw every registered athlete take participate in the first round in both the male and female categories.
Tire runs and wall jumps with sand bags were two of the four obstacles faced by competitors, after which the fastest finishers were then selected for round two.
Round two saw the athletes taking on five different challenges including a wall climb, and getting across a balance beam while toting a sand bag each in order to make it into the third and final round.
Athletes who made it through to round three were judged the same way as the first two rounds in order to pick the top three winners.
In the final round the competitor ran the longest circuit for the day, which included obstacles from the first round, one from the second round and a few which were faced for the first time. Included for the first time in the day in round three were barrel rolling, combat crawls and a rope climb which seemed to have brought many a to their make or break point.
At the end of a full day where many young people were able to overcome a series of obstacles and dug deep to push their bodies from the beginning of the day in mush and mud, to a dry field in the afternoon, the fastest three male and female of the third and final round were rewarded for their achievement.
Running the course in 3:47 was Xuxa Hunter to win the female category. Second place went to Noelle Smith after completing in a time of 3:59s. Manicy Allicock popped third place with a time of 4:90.
The male category saw more competition, but no one was able to complete the course faster than 2:19s set by Anfernee Branche.
Closest to the leading time was Dasham Erskine who completed the course in 2:27, with Mikhail Nelson with a time of 2:31.
Morning Glory was crowned the winner of the overall competition, Phoenix took second place while the Guyana Technical Institute (GTI) ended in third.
